Research Initiation: Exploring Enculturation of Engineering Students in the First-Year Engineering Program

工程师的职业化形成是一个全球关注的现象。为了吸引、留住和培养更多、更多样化的新一代工程师，正在对第一年的工程课程进行审查和重新评估。这项研究启动项目探索了工程专业学生在第一年基础工程课程期间对工程专业的培养。工程文化是指学生学习一种工程文化的传统内容并吸收工程实践和价值观的过程。这项工作构成了对一年级标准工程课程的分析，被视为一种文化体验。目标是确定第一年的工程课程和干预措施在多大程度上成功地欢迎不同的学生接触工程专业的文化。与其他有文化先例的职业(如医学和法律)一样，结果将为内容、活动和计划提供基础，使其更符合工程实践。这些结果的影响包括通过文化适应理论的循环提高了对工程师职业形成的认识，并改进了一年级工程课程的实践。这种影响可以转移到所有工程年限和专业化认证。利用社会科学的文化融合和文化适应进步，已经确定了文化融合的结果因素(例如算法思维、问题解决、工程设计等)。本研究旨在促进工程学中对这些文化融合结果因素的理解，从不同的人口角度来探讨它们。本项目的指导性研究问题是：(A)基础工程课程如何促进一年级工科学生在工程文化结果因素方面的表现？(B)在学生认为最容易和/或最具挑战性/最难达到的工程文化因素中？(C)随着时间的推移，学生对融入文化成为工程师的看法是如何变化的？该项目考虑了亚群在性别、种族、居住地(国内与国际)和录取类型(第一次上大学)方面的差异。通过学生的成绩分数和焦点小组，提出了一个为期两年的混合方法研究计划，相关结果包括通过探索性和验证性因素分析产生的工程灌输量表(EES)。最终的目标是通过文化习得的镜头来提高工程师的职业形成。

The professional formation of engineers is a phenomenon of global interest. First-year engineering programs are being scrutinized and reevaluated for the purpose of attracting, retaining, and graduating an increased and diverse new generation of engineers. This research initiation project explores the enculturation of engineering students to the engineering profession during the first-year foundational engineering courses. Engineering enculturation is defined as the process by which a student learns the traditional content of an engineering culture and assimilates engineering practices and values. This work constitutes an analysis of a standard first-year engineering curriculum seen as an enculturation experience. The goal is to identify the extent to which the first-year engineering courses and interventions successfully welcome diverse students to the culture of the engineering profession. As it is the case for other professions with enculturation precedents (i.e. medicine and law), results will provide the foundation from which content, activities and programs can be more attuned to the engineering practice. The impacts of these results include the advancement in the knowledge of the professional formation of engineers through a cycle of theory of acculturation and improvements to the practice of the first-year engineering curriculum. Such impacts are transferable to all engineering years and specializations. Taking advantage of the enculturation and acculturation advances of the social sciences, enculturation outcome factors have been identified (e.g. algorithmic thinking, problem solving, engineering design, etc.). This research seeks to advance the understanding of these enculturation outcome factors in engineering, approaching them from a diverse population perspective. The guiding research questions of this project are: (a) How do foundational engineering courses facilitate enculturation of first-year engineering students in terms of their performance in engineering enculturation outcome factors? (b) Among the engineering enculturation factors, which are perceived by students to be the easiest and/or the most challenging/difficult to achieve? (c) How do students' perceptions of enculturation to be an engineer change over time? The project takes into consideration subgroup differences in terms of gender, ethnicity, residency (domestic vs. international) and admission type (first time in college). A two year mixed-method research plan is proposed via students' performance scores and focus groups, and the associated results include an Engineering Enculturation Scale (EES) produced by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The ultimate goal is to improve the professional formation of engineers through the lens of cultural acquisition.